


His Queen of Faerie

by akathecentimetre



Category: Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis, The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Comte!Athos, Crossover, F/M, Gen, late in life, vaguely a death fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-16
Updated: 2014-05-16
Packaged: 2018-01-25 01:03:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1623365
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/akathecentimetre/pseuds/akathecentimetre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A follow-up to <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary">doomcanary</a>'s <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/1622684/chapters/3459644">brilliant little Narnia crossover fic</a>. d'Artagnan struggles to define the change in Athos, even decades later.</p>
            </blockquote>





	His Queen of Faerie

**Author's Note:**

  * For [doomcanary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/gifts).
  * Inspired by [That, My Friend, Is a Lion](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1622684) by [doomcanary](https://archiveofourown.org/users/doomcanary/pseuds/doomcanary). 



*

d'Artagnan is never sure, and he can tell that Porthos and Aramis are just as perplexed, as to when they notice a change creeping over Athos. Their first guess is that it was the influence of the Comtesse de Larroque, though she is quickly absent, that had calmed him, had rendered him even more impervious to the vagaries of the world, who had lightened his step and inspired something of a wonderment in him, a studiousness in his behavior that was not born of duty and a gladness that was often on display not only for them in their brotherhood, but to all. Later, they think it is the departure of Anne de Breuil that has wrought this transformation; later even than that, still uncertain, they put it down to his sudden capacity for sobriety, though they are not sure whether this is a symptom or a cause.

d'Artagnan thinks, with the faulty logic he knows is the product of his relative youth and inexperience compared to the others, that he has noticed a material difference; that there were days when he would find Athos in the armoire in his quarters, seeking solitude and safety and totally unaware of d’Artagnan’s presence when he came to watch over his friend; but that suddenly there were days when that fear was gone, and the wine-stains in the old wood faded from bloodstains into smudges, and Athos stopped looking backwards over his shoulder, stopped being oblivious to d’Artagnan’s knocks at his door and came to open it with open eyes and bringing with him the scent of fresh spring water.

He never spoke to anyone, not even to Porthos and Aramis, of those days. But d’Artagnan begins to date their new Athos to this strange time; begins to build into his memory Athos’s subsequent and sudden interest in history, of his ability to astonish Anne of Austria, when they are all in polite conversation at some palace function, with his accounts of the lineage of great medieval queens; of the stories he tucks away of the traditional festivals of rural Picardy and Provence and the demons which lived in German forests; he takes an interest in mechanics, and when the king summons Treville to the palace to show off the fine Leonardo prints he has collected, Athos’s face grows stern at the sight of fantastical flying machines, and he murmurs under his breath that one day, man’s inspiration to invention will be outstripped by his ability to destroy.

More than thirty years later, with their children grown and married or themselves soldiering, d’Artagnan and Constance travel northwest to Normandy unsure of what they will find of their old friend. d’Artagnan, wearing the fleur-de-lis of the Captaincy he claimed a decade previous and itching to be riding rather than sitting in a carriage, even if it means depriving himself of Constance’s company, has heard many things, over the years, about the reclusive and retired Comte de la Fère. Such a noted eccentric, the court gossips whisper; they say he invited a Dutchman all the way from Haarlem to tell him stories about Sinterklaas and the Christkindl, and gives gifts each December to the striplings living in his villages, a first sword or a pouch of silver or a dowry for the older girls. They say he has become a collector of phantasies, of English swords that had once belonged to Crusaders, of fairy tales.

When they arrive at the beautifully-restored manor, d’Artagnan’s worries are assuaged by the familiar firmness of Athos’s thin hands within his, of that ever-upright posture, of the nobility of the grey that has sprinkled its way through his hair. The Comte lives alone, still, with the help of but a few servants who keep mainly out of sight, and the atmosphere of the old house, despite the harsh memories it contains, brings d’Artagnan not a small amount of peace. They ride out together on the first morning after the arrival from Paris, their horses unsaddled and barely bridled, keeping their balance in the informality of their shirts and heavy day cloaks, and d’Artagnan thinks, not for the first time since he thought it often in his more impetuous youth, that Athos strikes the figure of a king of old in the dawn light, heavy with myth and evincing irrational loyalty.

They slow the horses to a walk as they pass through the lower woods of the estate, where the woman who was once Anne de Breuil is buried, her grave covered in a carpet of blue flowers (it is a long tale, and one on which d’Artagnan does not like to linger). A sad, very old look crosses Athos’s face before he smiles and says, “You are lucky, d’Artagnan, to be so fortunate in your affections towards the fairer of the sex. Never fall in love with a woman of a dark complexion, my friend. They are too easy lost, by chance or by design.”

It is not until later in the day, when he catches sight of a painting of an unknown woman who is not any version of the former Comtesse de la Fère hanging quietly upon the wall where Thomas’s portrait used to be, that d’Artagnan realizes that Athos was speaking of someone whom, by the reverence in his tone, may well have been another wife of whom the younger soldier is completely unaware. And that night, when he is awoken from his sleep from a terrified shaking of his arm by Constance, the sight of Athos standing in the moonlit forecourt with a dark, feline shape several times the size of a hunting dog at his side almost feels inevitable in its strangeness.

He imported the beast from North Africa, Athos tells them the next morning, his face grave with concern at the worry he caused Constance, and their lost sleep. It is tame as a lamb, he assures them, and most fond of Athos’s person in particular, but were it to threaten anyone in the house he would most certainly defend them against it. d'Artagnan remains astonished by the entire affair, but still trusts in Athos’s judgment, just. 

The three of them spend many days wandering, quiet and comfortable in each other’s company, Constance with her arm frequently tucked around Athos’s elbow to offer aid for what he jokes are limbs grown old before their time. He has lived many lives, he says gently, as they meander through the grounds in late summer sun, and feels that he has had many families, raised many children, and spends his days missing them.

“Do you ever feel that you are a man out of your time?” he asks d’Artagnan once, with mild and kind curiosity, and although d’Artagnan does, in fact, feel like another man entirely from the hotheaded boy he was when they first met, like his world was wrapped up in the person of the king and that when he died, his servant’s life went with him, he senses that this is not an answer to the question Athos is trying to ask, and so he shakes his head.

They had come to Normandy because of the whispered news, spread by courtiers more like vultures, that the Comte was ailing; though he seemed hale when they first arrived, Constance wakes d’Artagnan two weeks later to the news that Athos has taken to his bed, and the end seems near. When they enter the Comte’s chamber, the sight of the battered armoire in the corner of the room stops d’Artagnan in his tracks.

The lion paces outside the window, but stops, sudden and statuesque, when Athos, each of his hands within those of d’Artagnan’s and Constance’s, breathes his last and lies at peace. The big cat is nowhere to be found by the time the funeral arrangements are made, and as they gather in the churchyard, with Porthos slumped and aging before their eyes as he stands guard over the grave, d’Artagnan attempts to deal with a part of his sorrow by chiding Aramis for bringing strangers to the ceremony, as a dark-haired woman, hooded and cloaked, disappears behind the church.

“You wound me, my friend,” Aramis says with a frown. “I would never bring anyone unworthy here.”

“That woman was not your companion?”

“What woman?”

They bury him with the finest of the English swords, a massive, perfectly-conditioned weapon which d’Artagnan, even with all of his wiry soldier’s strength, could barely lift, and which, just a few weeks before, he had seen Athos wield with one hand. Aramis inherits the books, Porthos, the armor; to d’Artagnan, Athos leaves his estates and a note saying that he hoped against hope that, one day, d’Artagnan and Constance would meet the children he named after them. 

In his grief, d’Artagnan does not attempt to understand this message, and nor, in fact, is he sure that he wants to. He stands in what was the Comte’s bedchamber in the dark; when he wakes in the morning after an uneasy sleep, a splitting crack has appeared in the door of the armoire.

He puts it down to the weather changing from summer heat to autumn cool, and tries to think no more about it. He fails.

**FIN**


End file.
